Doctrina Christiana: The first book printed in the Philippines, Manila, 1593.
Religion
Doctrina Christiana: The first book printed in the Philippines, Manila, 1593.
Block books -- Facsimiles; Catholic Church -- Catechisms -- Spanish; Catholic Church -- Catechisms -- Tagalog; Tagalog language -- Texts
Had Aduarte written that the first books printed at Manila were two
Doctrinas issued by the Dominicans at San Gabriel in 1593, and given
some details of their production, we could conclude our study with
a quotation from him, but nowhere does he mention them. In fact,
his inference was that the first book was that printed for Blancas
de San Jose, and yet we know that this Doctrina preceded anything
that Blancas de San Jose could have written, since he did not come
to the Philippines until 1595. We can assume, as Retana did, that
by printing Aduarte meant printing from movable type, but this does
not explain away the fact that Aduarte, who recorded in detail events
of far less significance, did not speak of the Doctrinas at all. The
best--and it is a most unsatisfactory best--that we can do is ascribe
the omission to the frailty of man, and record that there is no notice
of the Dominican Doctrina of 1593 in the most complete contemporary
Dominican history of the Philippines.
The first members of the Order of St. Dominic [95] to land in the
Philippines were Bishop Salazar and his assistant, Christoval de
Salvatierra. But they were fully occupied with the administration of
the bishopric and could not devote themselves to regular missionary
work. It was not until July 25, 1587 that working Dominican
missionaries came. Then fifteen [96] under the leadership of Juan de
Castro arrived, and established the first Dominican province [97]
of the Philippines and China, thus consummating the hope expressed
as early as 1579. [98]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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